


The Sky in a Cage

by Gabri



Series: The Sky in a Cage [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Dark fic, Dark!Jack, Gags, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-consensual sex, angst abound, brainwashing/possession, forced transformation, stalker!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabri/pseuds/Gabri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't understand yet," Jack murmured, pressing a kiss to one freckled shoulder. "...but you will. I'm saving you. I <i>love</i> you."</p><p><i>This isn't love</i>, thought Hiccup savagely, burning from the inside out. <i>This is ownership.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sky in a Cage

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at Hijack with Fearling Prince!Jack gone very wrong. 
> 
> And very, very dark. Please heed the warnings. 
> 
> EDIT:  
> [bonus painting](http://chiwandering.tumblr.com/post/70753075095/this-isnt-love-this-is-ownership)  
> [bonus sketch](http://chiwandering.tumblr.com/post/50142971618/yeah-i-cant-sleep-so-have-some-brainwashed)

When Hiccup opened his eyes, there was nothing there but blackness.

This wasn't as weird as others may think, even with the benefit of knowing perfectly well that he had fallen asleep comfortably curled under several blankets in a reasonably well-lit room. Countless times before he had woken up in a blind tangle after Toothless' needy roars had startled him into crashing out of bed, or opened his eyes to find a motherly Toothless had long since wrapped him up tight under his wings, or found Toothless blocking out the light like a great liquid shadow, or....

...well, you get the idea. When your best friend was an exceptionally powerful (and surprisingly affectionate) stealth dragon, you tended to grow accustomed to changes in living arrangement.

So Hiccup just closed his eyes again, stretched his arms out to feel for leathery, folded wings, and-

...and his arms wouldn't move. Which may not have been so strange, considering, but his legs wouldn't move either. Hiccup tried to open his mouth, tentatively call out for his friend, only to find that he...well, _couldn't_. There was a pressure sealed over his lips, non-physical but very much there. Switches were slowly clicking in his sleepy brain, pattering down one after another like the first drops of winter rain: the faint ache in his shoulder blades, as if his arms had been kept in an uncomfortable position for quite some time. The creeping feeling of hidden eyes. The silence in the air, an utter stillness that was unnatural on a wild island like Berk. 

Assuming he was still _in_ Berk.

 _HELLO?_ Hiccup tried his best to shout into the darkness. What came out was a very faint, pathetic _mmmmph!_ sound that left little room to doubt that he had in fact been gagged.

So...great. Kidnapping was looking very high on the list.

At just that moment, a chilly laugh slipped through the air. Hiccup felt his heart leap into his throat as the ground beneath him suddenly rocked, swinging back and forth gently like a gigantic pendulum until his stomach and his head went all crisscrossed and dizzy and the urge to be sick hit him like a slap in the face.

"Ohhh, you're awake!" chortled the voice from somewhere close and slightly above. It was deep and joyfully insane, even by a Viking's standards. "Welcome back, Hiccup~"

Aaaand it knew his name. Perfect.

"Don't be afraid. If you're really good, I'll take the blindfold off, and if you're really, _really_ good, I'll take the shadows off and I'll let you stretch your legs...uh...leg." the voice snickered somewhat, then cleared its throat and started all over again, playfully sweet. "Before we, you know, get down to business. Doesn't that sound _fun?_ "

 _Why do the gods hate me?_ , Hiccup thought darkly, but all he could manage was still something between a helpless _mmmph!_ and a sort of unhappy, whimper-y growl back in his throat that was really more embarrassing than it was threatening. The voice laughed again, delighted, and Hiccup felt the ground give another lurching rock just as it had finally begun to still.

"You don't even know who I am, do you? _Yet._ " There was a chiming sound, delicate fumbling like a key twisting in a lock. A metallic creaking broke through - a door swinging open - and Hiccup tensed up as the air become notably colder. Faint padding echoed near his side, feather-light and nimble. Footsteps. "But I know who you are. You can hear me now, so I'll bet you'll be able to see me too. After all this time, you can see me...."

The voice was coming closer. Hiccup swallowed, heart racing. This wasn't good. He was all about reason and finding common ground. But bound, blinded, gagged and faced with a mentally unstable abductor...? His only hope was a bit of freedom, some way to negotiate or at least figure out where he was and who he was dealing with. Or help from Toothle-...gods, _Toothless_. Where was Toothless? He was never far behind no matter where they were - what if he was taken, too? What if he was hurt?

Worry swept over him nauseatingly as the image of the flightless dragon came to mind. But there was little time to dwell on the thought before a sharp pain flared along the back of his head, tugging: a set a bony fingers fisted in his hair. Hiccup's gasp was swallowed up by the gag, making itself known instead in the form of a visible shudder from his shoulders to buckling knees. 

The darkness peeled away. 

Staring wildly into his face was a pair of unnaturally bright blue eyes, wide and fractured with patterns of splintered ice. Jet black hair, highlighted with frozen winter ferns, fell over his forehead in shards. His skin was sunken, gray-white and translucent enough to show the bluish web of a circulatory system underneath. _Living people don't look like that_ , Hiccup thought in horror, and shivered hard enough to rattle teeth.

He twisted his head away, and the stranger jerked him roughly back by the hair. " _Look at me_ ," he demanded. "Come on, _look_....you owe me that much, Hic..."

He made a flicking motion with his hand, and the shadow-pressure over his lips was gone, as suddenly and impossibly as if it had never been there at all. Hiccup gasped in shaken, hurried breaths, wide-eyed. The boy leaned in, and Hiccup automatically tilted his head back, all too aware of the naked pulse thudding in his throat. It was an automatic retort from his time with the dragons, exposing the neck submissively to better his chances of making it out of a skirmish alive. Of course, that was before befriending them - before Toothless - but growing up in deathly conditions had long since made a few unbreakable habits.

Now blue eyes were fixed hungrily on his open neck, and Hiccup hissed as the hand in his hair pulled him back further, baring him like an offering. "Wait, j-just, _wait_ ," he babbled - another bad habit - he's long since stopped keeping count - but sometimes his brain moved too fast and his mouth didn't know how to catch up and, well. "I don't know you, I'm not - t-this is a misunderstanding so if you'd just, just let me--"

A pressure returned to his mouth, but this time it wasn't the shadow gag. Hungry, searching, the wet slide of a tongue behind his teeth....for a moment the notion that he's being _kissed_ is so surprising and bizarre and downright ridiculous that he can't think to do anything other than sit there and gape stupidly until the boy has pulled back.

He licked his lips slowly, thoughtfully, as if analyzing some rare, particular flavor. Hiccup counted teeth, each one bone-white and subtly fanged.

"Oh," he squeaked, because... _oh_. His mouth stung in a way reminiscent of the harsh bite of winter wind, his head so empty it may as well have been stuffed full of wool. "Oh gods..."

"Yeah," the boy - creature? _God?_ \- snickered smugly. "That's right. But you can call me Jack. Or _Jokul Frosti_ , if you like that one better?"

"I don't underst-"

" _Of course you don't!_ You didn't believe in me, so how _could_ you?" Jack's voice was shrill, an explosion, and Hiccup shut his eyes on the off-chance that dust and debris would follow. "But it doesn't matter - NOW you can see me. Pitch was right, fear works faster than belief. You have...haha... _no_ idea how long I've been waiting..."

 _I really, really don't_ , Hiccup agreed privately and somewhat hysterically. He tried to raise a hand to wipe at his cold mouth, but the shadow bonds barely allowed for struggling and Jack didn't seem inclined to lift them any time soon. "I kind of have a village to get to," he tried instead. It sounded just as pathetic aloud as it did in his head, but then elegance was never really his strong point. "My Dad will notice I'm gone - I, uh, I'm sort of _needed_ , actually, I know I don't look it, but. But we could - talk? Like, for starters, uh - my name's Hiccup! Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, but I guess maybe you already knew th-"

A freezing hand closed over his mouth. Hiccup huffed out a breath against the cold skin.

Alright. So maybe talking wasn't the best way to go about this after all. Noted.

Jack leaned in close. Blue, blue eyes were all he could see. He recalled the current of icy rivers, fish scales, gleaming wet paint on a bloodstained shield. There was something pretty buried deep underneath those eyes, but on the surface it looked remodeled and fake. Haunting. "You're not going anywhere," Jack said, digging his nails into Hiccup's cheek, and Hiccup tried to shout back at him but the muffled drum of his protests only sounded helpless, wounding pride and deepening the corners of Jack's grin.

So he quieted himself instead. Jack nodded, peeled his hand away, but the pressure stayed, that same layer of shadow sealed over again. Tendrils of darkness twitched and jumped when he moved, rising to his feet to observe his captive. From this angle, Hiccup could see more of his surroundings - slate stone and sinking stairs, rusted metal and heaps of blackness that twitched and moved like living things. He understood now why the floor was rocking so much before: he was in a _cage_. There were thousands of them, ornate and hollow, hanging from the ceiling like a twisted showcase. 

_Yeah, no. Definitely not in Berk anymore._

"I've been watching you for a long time," Jack confessed, pacing the small area of the cage. Hiccup tried to shake his head, connect their eyes, _anything_ , but there was a barrier there that just wouldn't fall away. "You were so lonely! Nobody wanted anything to do with you. Even your Dad didn't want you...." He tapped his chin, correcting: " _Doesn't_ want you. The only reason they bother with you now is because you learned a few tricks. You can't see that - you're too won over. But I can see it. _They_ don't know what it's like to be alone. _We_ do."

He turned, opening his palms like an offering, and the shadows around them bent and wavered. Was he imagining it, or were there eyes in that darkness? Distant, yellow, lamplit eyes..? "I wanted to be your _friend_. But you didn't believe in me. You never saw me. I kissed your nose, you know? I painted frost on your shield. I made paths for you in the ice. I sat by your bed, and you'd wake up shivering, but you never saw me...."

Hiccup stared, losing the beat of his words beneath the beating of his own heart. When did breathing become such a difficult task?

"...remember when you were six, how there was that storm after your mom died? You used to dig tunnels under all the snow, and one day everything collapsed on you. You were so scared, you just curled up and waited to die. And wouldn't you know it, I carried you back out. _Me!_ You didn't even say thank you."

That's.... _that's...._

There's ways he could have known that. There's ways around this, there has to be. It's like a joke with the punchline hovering out of reach, and Hiccup was just _waiting_ for it, trying not to just lose his cool and panic because being told you have a supernatural stalker is just - it's... _how?_ How could that be? Unless Jack really was a god? Unless fate wasn't quite ready to let him go?

Maybe - maybe this was all a dream, a very strange dream, and Toothless was curled up on the roof pawing at the tiles and whining for him to wake up and fit into that empty spot between his wings. And any second now he was going to wake, and....

Jack knelt down. Grasped at his vest. The shadows melted and twisted to allow his movements, and Hiccup tried to scream into the shadow gag but he may as well have been trying to _will_ himself free for all the good it did. Jack pushed the fur back into a tangle around his arms. Hiked the green tunic up over his ribs. 

_This isn't real._ Hiccup jumped when cold fingers splayed over his naked belly. Shivers blossomed like ripples on water. Jack made a low noise, pleased and curious. _Of all the-- this can't be real...._

Somewhere in the distance, a low, silky voice laughed out calmly. "Jack."

Two gold eyes blinked open in the darkness beyond them. 

_No_ , he thought with dawning horror. _No, no, no._ Wasn't one _enough?_ But the man who stepped out of the shadows was different from Jack - older, more refined. His narrow face was all flat lines and angles, a pointed chin and a wide carnivore mouth. Shrouded in an inky cloak, it seemed impossible to tell just where the gray skin ended and the shadows began. He moved on the air is if gliding, hovering just outside the rusted bars of Hiccup's cage.

Their eyes met, forest green to glassy gold...and suddenly he was a thousand miles up in smoky, stormy air, pressed against Toothless' back and blinking through the fire, the rumbling screams of the Red Death surrounding him from all sides until he was weightless, falling, falling, _falling--_

"'bout time you're back." Jack said gleefully, and the fearful spell broke as the man's golden gaze tore itself from him. Jack's touches went still, pausing as he turned to eye the other: there was adoration in his gaze, raw and twisted. "So, did you get the dragon?"

 _Toothless._ Hiccup's heart all but stopped in his chest.

"Now, now, my Fearling Prince" the man said, shaking his head in a fond, chiding sort of way. "I said you could have _**a**_ toy, not two."

"But this one comes in a set! If you separate them, he'll just break. I don't want him broken, I want him _moving_..." 

"'I want, I want'...." the man repeated, bending to step into the spacious cage. "Must you be so ungrateful?"

"Come onnn, Pitch! It's a _dragon_. Can you imagine a Night Fury Fearling, all spitting fireballs and blotting out the sun, it would be so _cool_ -"

"Mmm." said Pitch, only half listening. Those yellow eyes fixed on Hiccup again, and the shaken Viking quickly picked a spot at his collar to stare at instead. He had learned a lot about give and take from the dragons - Toothless was a prime example: fierce and deadly at the drop of a coin, it had taken patience and trust and a certain suicidal love to expose his softer side. But it was _there_ , and once he had found it he learned how to navigate it, figure out what Toothless liked and what made him angry. Now that dragon's heart was his home. He lived there, breathed there, felt _safest_ there. Other dragons were deathly, but they had their soft spots too. Some were tougher to reach than others: a Terror only needed a bit of fish after a long day, while a Nightmare he needed to look in the eyes, give that pound of respect and leave himself open if he ever hoped to develop trust. 

He thought maybe they were all like that - secret, misunderstood. But then he saw the Hive Queen, the Red Death - and by proxy, the crazed, hypnotic look in the dragon's eyes as its buzzing song rattled bones - and there was no forgetting that. There was no reasoning with the abomination, no meeting of eyes and opening of hands. He had explained to his tribe that dragons were a lot like people: many-sided, complicated and vastly changing, but what he didn't say was that some people were also too evil to reach, too far gone and corrupted. Some people were more Hive Queen than human, pulling strings and sucking out souls until the only bit of heart left in them was rotted to nothing.

It only took a moment of looking into Pitch's eyes to recognize that there was nothing human left. He was a Red Death, and Jack was nothing more than a worker dragon, hypnotized by a buzzing song. It didn't surprise him to see his shoulders slump as Pitch approached, the lines of his face smoothing into something open and adoring and disturbingly submissive. 

Gods, how he wanted Toothless to be here. He wouldn't be afraid if Toothless was here. But at the same time, by the snippets of their words, maybe it would be best if he stayed safe and missing. Hiccup tried not to feel the eyes on him, the exposed skin over his stomach and chest that Jack had bared earlier. He watched the two uneasily as a long-fingered hand threaded through the fearling's frosted black hair, naturally possessive. Jack leaned into the touch unconsciously. 

"You won't break this one, will you?" Pitch said, looking at Hiccup with polite interest. He may as well have been an item on a shelf. 

"Not a chance. If you get that dragon then he'll last a million years, promise." Pitch scowled at that, combing through the inky locks idly. Jack's white smile curled like ribbon. "Hey, so - can I try him out now? Pleeeease?"

"It would seem you've already started." Jack smirked and nuzzled his wrist apologetically. Kissed the spot where a pulse would be. Hiccup had never seen affection like this in Berk, where punches followed kisses and kisses themselves tended to bruise, but he knew enough of human nature to understand there was nothing genuine about what he was witnessing. "He is yours. Do what you want with him," Pitch decided at last, already turning away. "It makes no difference to me."

He stepped from the cage, mid-air for a fraction of a second, and then he _dropped_ and the shadows swallowed him up, swiftly and silently. Fearling eyes bubbled and multiplied in the darkness, pressing in to fill his absence. 

Jack cackled. "We're gonna have _fun_ ," he promised, and without further adieu he swooped down and kissed him again, not bothering to remove the shadow gag. Hiccup tasted darkness, ozone and melting ice while nimble hands rushed to untie his pants. The shadows around his ankles and knees melted away to accommodate, settling over his limbs in a way that felt unnatural and heavy. Jack hooked his thumbs beneath the material and pulled down, down, nudging his legs open as Hiccup tried to press his knees together, mortified. 

He had never been naked with another person....if Jack could even be considered a person at all. Hiccup counted to three, slowly, before what calm was left shattered and he threw the little strength he had into struggling. 

As predicted, the shadow bonds squeezed tight. He barely moved an inch except to tire himself out. Jack shushed him sweetly, fitted himself to Hiccup's side. "That _fear_..." he breathed, and his voice sounded low, primal and new. "I wish you knew, Hiccup, when you get really scared, it's the prettiest thing. Your eyes go as big as the moon and you tremble all over 'till it reaches your toes, and you make this moaning noise way back in your throat like you're being strangled...." 

Chilly fingers danced over his collar at the suggestion. Hiccup could feel him pressed against his thigh, just sort of... _rubbing_ , shadow and cloth and flesh underneath. His thoughts become muddled and gauzy, a litany of _no, no, no..._

"I'm going to take the gag off, okay?" Jack hummed, and a moment later the pressure over his mouth was gone. He gasped in air, blinking, and Jack shivered with pleasure at the torrents of fear. His lips parted slightly, as if it were a tangible flavor upon the air, and Hiccup's mind raced for the right words, knowing he may only be able to fit in a choice few. 

But what he should he _do?_ Was it better to scream or play dead in the dragon's nest? Without Toothless to fly him out, he was just going to get eaten either way, wasn't he?

_What happened to 'stubbornness issues?'_

Oh, right. Send them running. Because the old Viking standard had always worked wonders before. He nearly rolled his eyes at the dry reminder. Jack didn't notice; he was too busy pressing his thumb into the soft hollow at the back of Hiccup's knee. The Fearling boy sighed in anticipation, inspecting his prosthetic foot curiously before coming to some secret conclusion and hiking the same leg up over his shoulder. Hiccup opened his mouth, managed a sound that bordered dangerously close to a sob, and snapped it closed again. His face was terribly hot, lit as if by burning coals. "J-Jack, listen to me - you need to **stop**. I'm serious, you don't want to-"

"Ssh." Jack leaned in, nuzzling his belly while Hiccup tried weakly to close his legs. Goosebumps prickled over his skin, raising the fine hairs on the back of his neck and tickling through his scalp. His skin felt warmer now, less icy and more winter-cool, but he couldn't hold in his surprised " _ah!_ " when a damp tongue painted a stripe down from his ribs to his navel.

"Make that sound again," Jack demanded, his eyes round and eager, and then he ducked down until Hiccup could only see the inky mess of hair and the bony outline of his shoulders. A hand curled over him shamelessly, and then - then Jack bent down and _licked_ until a spike of pleasure broke through the horror and he cried out, arching. His captor bent double, teased with practiced flicks of his tongue, and Hiccup squeezed his eyes shut, tried to take that bit of traitorous pleasure and hammer it back into logic and control.

The fingers locked around his hips slid lower, one hand holding him in place, the other teasing and pushing right where it shouldn't. Hiccup may have been young and admittedly naive to a point, but he was far from stupid. He saw where this was going. What Jack was doing to him, between the warm wetness of a dark mouth on his cock and the pressure of shadows tugging him still and pliant, slick fingers rubbing circles on sensitive skin. He tried to block it out, to remember how to speak and reason and negotiate (because that's his strong point, his brain, his _heart_ ), but at that moment Jack pressed inside him with one finger, then two, and he couldn't scream, couldn't wipe away the wet tracks that had appeared on his cheeks, couldn't even remember how to breathe.

"Don't," he rasped, and his voice sounded cracked and watery and nothing at all like the Hiccup he knew. "Jack... _don't_...."

"You'll like it," he assured kindly, and curled his fingers for emphasis. Hiccup's world went white, and Jack was chortling when he blinked back to earth, tenderly kissing his cheek, his lips. And he...he just...

Okay.

_Okay._

He could do this. He could....could get through this. He was a Viking, he'd been raised in a village on fire, made himself vulnerable before teeth and claws and axes alike. He'd free-fallen from a hundred miles in the air and landed on black scales and leathery wings. He'd _killed the Red Death_ , the greatest fear of dragons and humans alike. 

Although he'd never - he'd only ever kissed Astrid, only ever had private thoughts: vague, uncertain, sweltering sort of thoughts that tended to bury themselves rather nauseatingly under reminders of _too thin_ and _too ugly_ and _disappointing, always so disappointing.._

He had never even thought of _this._

Slow, possessive. A mouth sucking bruises in his throat, shadow-cloth friction of a body working between his legs. The pleasure-pain of fingers on him, _in_ him, fucking him like a toy, like the tears ( _because who was he kidding, they were tears_ ) didn't even matter. But no - no - he killed the Red Death, he survived that battle. He could survive this one.

"You ready?" the Fearling Prince purred, removing his fingers, and Hiccup sucked in a shaky breath and didn't answer. He heard a tongue clicking in annoyance, followed by an sigh. "Hey, it's okay...everything's gonna be alright. Believe me, Hic, you'll like it by the end."

_Gods..._

The shadow gag had vanished, so Hiccup gritted his teeth to accommodate. Struggling got him nowhere. Begging got him nowhere. He set his jaw, stubborn where he could control it, because if there was one thing he could take from this, it was that he could at least not give them the pleasure of hearing him break.

Jack eased out from underneath his leg, set it back on the cage floor gently. Pale hands grasped around his waist, lifting, and with the help of the living shadows he maneuvered Hiccup up and over and down until he seated neatly in Jack's lap. The shadows on him had melted away quite easily, almost as an afterthought, but unlike Hiccup Jack regarded his own nudity with a complete lack of self-consciousness. His smile was confident, mischievous, one hand wound around his captive to grasp at his own cock, guiding. 

The shadows relaxed somewhat, giving him enough control to hold himself up with some of his own strength. Hiccup tried to lift his arms and found the shadows gently leading, allowing him enough leeway to brace himself against Jack's shoulders.

"That's it," he sighed contently, lining himself up. And then his hands urged down, and the shadows urged down, and Hiccup gasped, winced, tried to turn his head away at the blunt intrusion. Cold fingers smoothed over his skin, whispering words of encouragement.

_You've been through worse, you know you have...._

He shut his eyes, trying to swallow any sound, but it was impossible to erase the awful keening that escaped him as he sank down slow, inch by inch, a burning stretch that coiled fire in his belly until Jack was fully sheathed inside him and Hiccup was gasping for air, tears rolling heavy down his cheeks. 

He felt stuffed full, raw and aching, and though he had felt worse pain (his leg was a perfect example, though the memory of burns and open wounds from dragon attacks were enough on their own,) it was nothing so terribly invasive, so utterly violating as this.

"There," Jack breathed out, his voice hazy and low from pleasure. "That's good." he steadied one hand on Hiccup's bare hip, stroking. The other combed bangs back from his temple, chilling the sweat there in the process. "Wow, you...you feel great."

_Odin's beard, if he would just-- Stop. **Talking.**_

Jack shifted, rocked up in to him a little, not quite a thrust but enough for Hiccup to dig his fingers in and choke back a sob. "You don't understand yet," he murmured, pressing a kiss to one freckled shoulder. "But you will. I'm saving you. I _love_ you."

 _This isn't love_ , thought Hiccup savagely, burning from the inside out. _This is ownership._

He had been blocking out the world, his brain zeroing in on just the two of them, only he should have known better then to assume they were alone. Mingled with their strained breaths, a cruel laugh melted out of the shadows behind him, "Enjoying yourself?"

The hand on his hip tightened. Hiccup moaned in protest, shuddering anew, his shoulders hitching with the force of it. Just when he thought it couldn't get worse, Jack's master was back. _Go away,_ he thought desperately, face scarlet. _Please, please, please just go away._

With a few pacing steps, the Nightmare King came into view, looking slightly tired but decidedly bored with his company. And for Thors sake, Jack wouldn't stop _moving_ , rutting into him almost thoughtlessly and drinking up the spilled, awful sounds with his open mouth. It was perverse. It was _humiliating_. And he knew better than to expect the shadow man to have pity, but for a split second his eyes found Hiccup's again and a wicked smile stretched across his face like a scythe... 

"My, you were correct after all, weren't you? The poor thing looks ready to shatter."

"Told you... _fuck_ , he's really tight...."

Pitch tsk'd mockingly, canting his head at the sight before him. "But so very still. How very disappointing. Come now, child, you can do better than _that_."

 _Stop talking_ , Hiccup thought desperately, _STOP TALKING_. There was a fire in his chest, burning up to the back of his eyes. He was only vaguely aware of his hands struggling to clench into fists, or the growl that had lodged itself wildly in the back of his throat.

Pitch lofted a brow at him coldly. Considering. He raised a slender hand and extended it palm down, stretching his fingers out over Jack's shoulder and directly over Hiccup's heart.

"It's time, I think." he intoned calmly. "My little fearling."

And before Hiccup could even attempt to laugh at the gesture (because really, what _now_? What else could they possibly do that they hadn't already?) Pitch's fingers lay flat against his chest, pressing, but instead of meeting resistance they forced themselves _through--_

And all at once the young Viking's world went completely black.

There was no Jack. No Pitch. No blinking fearling eyes and hanging cages. There was only pain - explosive, all-consuming agony that cut through his blood and marrow and into the very core of his being where Pitch's dark fingers curled tight around his center....

...and _pulled._

Hiccup screamed. And screamed, and screamed. He was being vivisected, ripped open and consumed. Darkness poured into the negative spaces, rushing in like the tide and filling the gaping wound at his core. Shadow hands pressed into his mouth, his lungs, grasped handfuls of light and sky-bleached dreams and ripped them out, snapping cords of hope and joy like fragile, well-worn threads. 

There were no words to describe that agony. It was a pain like he had never known, never even dreamed of. Faces flashed before his eyes like brittle sunbeams, each one twisting into something shadow-strewn and ugly - his father, his friends, Astrid's glowing grin - and finally, Toothless. His dragon, his best friend...wonderful, loyal, Toothless.... 

And once again, Hiccup was falling from the sky. The dragon's inky shape dove through the haze and hurtled after him, but this time he knew it was too late. The Night Fury was a speck of dark wings in the distance. Hiccup was seconds from the ground.

Terror bubbled up around him like thick, fresh smoke. Nightmare eyes blinking from above and below, peeking out through the curtains of flame and shrieking wind. They smiled at him, cawed hungrily for blood, for fear - and Odin help him, there was _so. much. FEAR--_

 _Toothless_ , Hiccup screamed, _TOOTHLESS, **CATCH ME--**_

And then came the impact.

\------

" _Oh FUCK--_ ," Jack bit out, curling his fingers in to graying flesh. Hiccup was like a vice upon him as he convulsed through Pitch's forced transformation, and Jack could do little but gasp and grind through the deplorable squeeze. The Nightmare King lingered for a moment, frowning, removing his hand from the slowly darkening body almost as an afterthought. Then, with a tolerant smile, he vanished neatly into shadow. 

Hiccup had gone mostly still, twitching faintly as the darkness worked through the finer, more delicate pathways within his center. He was beautiful in black, with a well of tossed hair like spilled ink and stone-gray skin still peppered with freckles. He blinked vacantly as consciousness slowly returned, and Jack could only just see the stark, unnatural glow of acid green eyes peeking out from under fluttering lashes.

He dragged his hands up the thin torso, steadying him. The newborn fearling stirred in response, back arching, winding his lean legs tightly around Jack's waist. He had known him to be scrawny before, all bony joints and ribs prominent enough to count, but he had never realized how _small_ Hiccup was until they were intertwined. The way he fit into the winter sprite's shadow, it was as if he was born to reside there.

 _He was_ , Jack knew, kissing that warm, unresponsive mouth lovingly. _Just like me with Pitch_. And though a warm, safe glow settled around him at the thought of being similarly saved, a lost fragment of him ached unexpectedly.

It was his secret, an annoyance that broke through the lovely fear: that sometimes a different sort of consciousness lingered at the surface of his darkling mind, a broken soul victimized but not quite fully stamped out yet. _This isn't love_ , screamed that voice, raw and broken like spider-web shards of ice over a forgotten lake. _This is ownership._

He didn't know the difference anymore.

\------

Hiccup woke to a world tinted gray. 

Fearlings. Nightmares. Yellow eyes, steady and curious. A pressure on his skin, the pads of chilly fingers, a cool tongue tracing loose snowflake patterns over his chest. He felt numb, thoroughly drugged, as if everything here was happening to someone else and he was only watching, floating above it all like an astral projection. 

He spared a moment to examine his hands (silvery-pale, thin but calloused from work), counted the knuckles and tucked them away against the winter-bright body beneath him. Blue eyes and an icy smile ( _Jack_ , his mind supplied). He was aware that he was moving, or more accurately, Jack was moving _him_ , fucking him gently from beneath the weight of his sleepy body.

Everything else beyond their names - it all seemed foggy. Unimportant. 

But there was pleasure too - _that_ seemed important, persistent and sweet though strangely foreign in his battered state. Hiccup curled his fingers experimentally, braced himself over Jack's shoulders until the fearling's leaking cock was almost entirely out of him. _Oh_ , whispered a voice in his head drunkenly as the slide made him gasp aloud. _That's - that's nice._ He hovered for a moment, chewing his lip, then sunk down and cried out, lifted and fell again and again, trembling and moaning because he knew how to do nothing else.

Jack's hissed something, tilted his head back as if in pain, but Hiccup barely noticed in his frenzy of movement. Something clicked inside him, a spot he hadn't even been aware to aim for, and - 

" _NNnnngh!_ "

He wanted more. _Needed_ more. It was a primal hunger and it wasn't even his own but the black tar of his heart was singing in completion and he was unable to refuse. His superior ( _owner,_ his mind corrected) moaned against his open mouth, nibbled at his lower lip as Hiccup rocked against him eagerly, setting a pace that was fast and bruising. The bonds ( _shadows_ ) were all gone now, and Hiccup nearly cried for joy at the realization because that meant he could ( _finally_ ) get leverage. Suddenly there seemed to be nothing more important than moving, working Jack faster and deeper inside himself.

" _That's it Hic_ ," Jack stroked his face, his belly, curled a hand around his cock. It was cold and perfect, pleasure-tinged pain, and Hiccup cried out and arched against him at the duel sensations. He was close to - to _something_ \- but whatever it was, Jack was close too. He could feel it building within them like a tsunami, coiling hot and tense beneath his skin until Jack's fingers finally locked around his wrist and Jack's teeth scraped over his throat and Hiccup could do nothing but sob and come undone in his hands.

He collapsed against him heavily, panting, and not long after Jack bit down hard enough to break skin and went tense as well. There was an odd, liquid coldness within him, and Hiccup squirmed at the sensation, toes curling, scrunching his face up against Jack's bare shoulder. 

He felt kisses in the afterglow, a rain of them pressing down upon his forehead and his nose and the little creases along his palms. Curiously enough, there was a wetness on his face, moisture dripping from his eyes and pooling thickly at his chin. For the life of him he couldn't quite remember why that was.

"I told you you'd like it," Jack said, wiping away the moisture with the back of his hand. The words didn't quite make sense to him, but the tone was graciously approving and Hiccup couldn't resist the compulsion to nod. "Didn't I?"

"You-" he began, and immediately stopped. Beyond the gasping and moaning, the sound of his own voice startled him inexplicably. "...yeah." he managed finally. "You did."

Liquid droplets blurred his eyes again. Strange.

But not important.

Hiccup curled himself within the safety of his master's arms and waited for them to subside.


End file.
